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Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

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Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#171

Post by matt_wulfeck »

pc86 wrote: post #25
_wc0m wrote: post #9

Rent is an amazingly effective means of redistributing wealth upwards. I have easily paid over £100k rent in my life, always to people substantially richer than I am. Always enjoyed this Churchill quote - from 1909! Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits s…

And what you received in exchange for that was a lifetime of not being homeless, having no maintenance or (immediate or direct) tax responsibilities, and the freedom to leave without having to sell an expensive, illiquid asset.

If you bought your home 5 or 6 years ago, then your mortgage is most likely lower than the market rent for it. I have friends in this exact situation. New job and moving in 30 days. Off to a property management company where somebody else will pay the mortgage for you.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#172

Post by khedoros1 »

mcbruiser3 wrote: post #24
_wc0m wrote: post #9

Rent is an amazingly effective means of redistributing wealth upwards. I have easily paid over £100k rent in my life, always to people substantially richer than I am. Always enjoyed this Churchill quote - from 1909! Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -- and all the while the landlord sits s…

I love how some folks complain about paying rent as if they have no choices, as if they're somehow indentured servants or serfs beholden to the landed gentry or something. The truth is you do have choices, even in tough times. Find a way to save money for a down payment and buy some property. Maybe even become a landlord yourself.

If you've got a way to save up some 10's of thousands of dollars for a down payment in a reasonable time, and be able to pay the mortgage for the loan, that doesn't sound like "tough times" to me.

I bought 7 years ago, when the market in my area was at its lowest. Saving for years, on an income significantly above median (for the area), I was just able to afford a down payment on a starter home.

Most people in my area make less than me, and the market has significantly picked up. My next door neighbor just sold their place, smaller and less upgraded than mine, for about 1.5x what I paid for mine. And the people that couldn't pay 2/3 that price 7 years ago should have just tried harder to save up to afford it now, right?

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#173

Post by khedoros1 »

xenihn wrote: post #60
beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

>In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. Same thing in Los Angeles (the entire county) and Irvine.

I own in OC. I remember when I bought, it felt like I was dodging between all-cash offers for a lot of places. It was difficult to find somewhere move in ready that was within my budget and didn't have an over-listing all-cash offer on it already (and this was years ago).

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#174

Post by neilparikh »

beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

I'm not sure why it matters if the buyer is foreign or American. You would get the same issue if an investor from Texas decided to buy 10 houses and live in 1.

The key issue here is that there's housing that's unoccupied, even under lots of demand. The fix for that is to tax or ban unoccupied housing, not ban foreign housing.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#175

Post by swendoog »

I'm so tired of seeing these articles, and then seeing nothing done to fix the problem.

I feel like we've been seeing "HOUSING COSTS PROHIBITIVELY HIGH" and "RENTS OUT OF CONTROL" for years now in California and yet can anyone point to meaningful progress on a solution? The legislature is inept and completely unable or unwilling to address the issue head on.

SB-2 for example. This is the kind of legislation we're getting in 2017, when the median home price in CA is twice the national average, and less than a third of CA households can afford a median priced home?

Most reform I've seen focusses solely on building more affordable housing (i.e. government programs for low income), but never addresses the fact that even market rates are stratospheric in some areas. Asking for better market rates does not mean we can't also solve low income housing.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#176

Post by neilparikh »

pjc50 wrote: post #107
vkou wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand correctly, in the United Kingdom, there are no property taxes. Instead, there are council taxes - but they are paid by the tenant, not the landlord! Now, while most of the rest of the world has property taxes, I would argue that they are far too low.

Yeah, it's a stupid situation. There's a property transaction tax, "stamp duty", which can be surprisingly high ( http://www.knightfrank.co.uk/stamp-duty-calculator ) but of course that really ends up protecting incumbents rather than taxing them.

Why would you want to tax sales of property? That just makes the market more illiquid, as well as making it more expensive to increase density (because you now to pay an extra a fee if you want to buy a single family house to replace with an taller building).

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#177

Post by panda88888 »

gowld wrote: post #138
pc86 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain how this additional tax isn't immediately (at the next least signing) passed on to renters. If I rent out a property and the taxes go up $X, I will raise rent at least 1x.

Econ 101 supply and demand. Why haven't you _already_ raised rent $X? Because you love your tenants? If landlords kept down rents out of _charity_, we wouldn't have a rent problem in the first place.

Except all rental properties in the region would have to pay similar amount of land tax, so they would all raise the rent and the renter would have to choose either pay the higher rent or move to a cheaper area.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#178

Post by watwut »

billmalarky wrote: post #161
watwut wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a place to live in, while if I would be renting, I would have no more money for rent and had to move. I am not speculating on that flat with intention to sell. I live in it.

You've lost your job and were only able to get a job that paid half, how do you make your mortgage payment? If you are renting you are not locked into the property, you have the flexibility to move to a lower cost flat.

The monthly mandatory payment on my mortgage is now a lot lower then typical rent (I have freedom to pay more if I wish to). It was roughly same as rent for few years, but it went down as I paid the debt.

If my salary would go down to half and my husband would got unemployed, we would still be able to pay it. You don't have to buy the most expensive flat there is in the city. And if we were not, that would still be not that much different then not being able to pay rent.

In really really the worst case, you move to that lower cost flat and have bank take away your flat (since you aint paying mortgage it is theirs). But it is less likely to happen then being unable to pay rent because we got sick simultaneously with economy tanking.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#179

Post by akanet »

beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

I sincerely doubt foreign purchases are the main driver of rent increase, and no study has ever demonstrated as much. The anti-foreigner mindset is extremely dangerous.

Rising rents are almost entirely because of local restrictions on creating more housing. The beneficiaries of restricted supply are existing owners and landlords.

Re: Rising Rents Are Pushing More Tenants Past the Breaking Point

#180

Post by rsync »

beebmam wrote: post #36

In large cities across the US (and probably most of the world), there is some very large scale foreign speculation in the housing market going on. This is leading to rising rents and rising home prices. In Seattle, for example, many (newly) wealthy Chinese people are buying houses purely for investment purposes. I know some of them. One of them has purchased 10 houses, and lives in only one of them (when they are in…

"To me, this is absurd. This is a human rights issue (homelessness is growing by a large amount)."

Homelessness is a mental health issue. Nobody is homeless because of foreign speculators.

Yes, people are indeed incentivized to relocate to housing markets that Chinese people have never heard of like, for instance, Tacoma.

If those people spent half their time working and saving (like their parents did) as they spent bitching about their basic human right to live in a walkable neighborhood with artisanal foodstuffs they would then have a nice down payment when the inevitable crash comes to the hot housing market in question.

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